I probably still have some whiskey in my system from the weekend, if that counts.

Also, I have phlebitis or something in my lower left leg and it hurts like the proverbial Dickens. So I suppose I could bitch about that, but it's not especially interesting and I'd rather not dwell on it anyway.

Oh, oh! But here's something: Canadian politics is fucking farcical! (At least if you live in Alberta.) I was talking to some friends on the weekend and they recounted to me how, seeing as the Tories have been in provincial government for four decades after taking over from the even more right-wing Social Credit Party before them, they've decided to get memberships and caucus with the Tories because "there are no other parties." I was about to argue with them -- of course there are other parties! -- but then remembered the NDP has actual homeless people managing campaigns here, the Liberals are all but nonexistent since Michael Ignatieff's recent implosion at the Federal level, and the only provincial party mounting a serious challenge to the Tories is the Wild Rose Party... which is essentially a Republican Party branch-transplant from the States! So not only do I effectively live under a single-party provincial regime... its staying that way is actually the best-case scenario for the near future!

I started drinking pretty heavily after I followed that train of thought.

I dunno. Last June I checked out this pro wrestling school/shithole but i was broke but I've saved my money and it's really cheap now; $100 to enroll and then $20 per week. It starts on the 29th but I just don't know. I want to taste the action I've admired since I was a kid, but I don't think I wanna give my money to some jabroni turned trainer nobody's heard of. Rather go to wrestling shows as a fan.

So I'll nip that in the bud. It'll still be around when I'm ready, until then I'm still figuring out this bullshit comics destiny. I guess I should get a table at a con or submit something?? I dunno, I don't think my comics are pretentious and word-y enough, OR obnoxious and fight-y enough. Everyone's trying to be the next "look at me i'm so mind-fucky" Morrison or Moore, etc. or think a comic script should be crafted like some brilliant screenplay or whatever. I just wanna be the first me. I tend to identify better with Mignola and Eric Powell (and Warren in non-art cases) and since they handle most of their heavy lifting and understand how much work goes into making a damn comic. blahhh, i guess i like to keep it old school.

Also the other week I saw this mohawk'd Lisbeth wannabe at 7-11 twice already. I really shoulda spoken up. Hope I catch her there again because she's fucking hot and I wanna know awesome people in real life for a goddamn change. My primal instincts are making me daydream about how awesome it would be to nail her but I am not a pig and I like to get to know someone first!ANYWAY, fucking January's always make me wanna crank out as much "work" as I can but it doesn't fucking work that way. I'm just gonna take things one hour at a time and let the chips fall where they fucking may, as usual!

RRAAAAAARGGHHH....I feel better now. It's been a ROUGH couple years. While I do have a job I am very unhappy there, so, to combat this, I am going to school to be a Network Administrator, I am half way through my associates degree. I don't have any hooch but later, after class THERE WILL BE BEER, or homework, we will see which wins.

Well, interesting things happened since the last open mic. Since last week I’m no longer in the project I wasn’t comfortable talking about the last time. It’s a comics event with a bit of cinema, animation and illustration.I was taking care of the official email address of the event and I get an email from a journalist asking for more information about it. He’d rather have it on that day and I saw the email 2 hours after he sent it. I called him, got interviewed and the news got out where it says clearly I was one of members of the organization. When I talked with the journalist I made clear this was a group with one person coordinating. Well, that’s not how the event’s “director” think.Next day I’m forced to talk with the journalist to clarify that this was a group with one person coordinating everything (he confirmed he understood that the first time we talked and also through an email sent to him).Around noon I lose access to the event’s email account and FB page. I try to talk with the “director” during the night by phone and FB with no success. Finally by dawn I got an email where he explains I was expelled because I didn’t do any work to the festival*. Funny because publically they talk about an “abuse” I did (that talk with the journalist) but privately it’s a different matter. The interview is just a small detail in a long list of issues about me that, up to that point, no one on the organization neither had any problem with nor talked to me about it.Some people warned me about him, that he’s not to be trusted but I thought I could manage it. Oh well, at least I won’t get embarrassed by inviting international artists I’m friends with to an event that could out to be a flop.

After ranting about this with a friend he tells me he’s in the hospital (we were talking through gchat) to get surgery so he can start haemodialysis soon (he has kidney issues since young). That was an awful way to put things in perspective. After this I’m so going to put this comics event way behind, get this never ending thesis done and get on with my life.

*All the artists I contacted cancelled and the sponsorships I tried to get, most of them weren’t interested in the event but the few ones I got, oh boy they were really good. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything done.

On the good side I've finally managed to get some proper progress made on the novel I'm working on at the moment, but really it should have been finished a month or so ago.

My other novel's sad travels knocking on the doors of agencies only to be left standing in the cold, unloved and unnoticed. Once I've gone around the various places I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'd hate to consign it the defunct pile with so many of my other novels. Lulu fills me with dread, mainly because the prices are so outlandish that no one wants to buy anything I've put up. I'm not entirely sure other POD places are any better.

The comics side seems have lapsed into silence again. Mainly because I can't pay artists (you have no idea how poor I am) for their work so my scripts have to go to the bottom of their piles. Not much I can do about that.

So, with great fanfare I set off some weeks back for a trip to Sydney, followed by a 12 night cruise to New Zealand, then just under a week in Auckland. A cruise that cost me a stupid amount of money. I had a fine time in Sydney, boarded the ship and within 24 hours realised that I'd made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

Cruises, as I soon realised, are intensely social enterprises. You're stuck on a boat in the middle of the sea with a bunch of random people, and everything available to do is based around getting to know these random people and doing social things with them. I am one of the least social people you're ever likely to meet. The limited space on board makes everything cramped and claustrophobic, and the cold, stormy Tasman Sea makes hanging out on deck unpleasant. Combine this with the fact that the motion of the ship was stopping me from sleeping, and that I was (as I now know) coming down with Typhus from a tick I picked up in Sydney, the trip that I'd so been looking forwards to (and planning to use to get some serious writing done) turned out to be the voyage from hell.

Two days in I jumped ship in Melbourne and flew home in an intense state of humiliation, embarrassment and self loathing. No adventures in New Zealand, and several thousand bucks down the hole.

On the plus side I now know that I hate cruising and I was able to experience the delights of typhus from my own bed, rather than from a boat in the middle of the ocean.

I have the beginnings of my first wrinkle on my forehead. A little vertical line that doesn't seem to go away from where i furrow my brow quite often. It's only visible when you're an obsessive girl person with blinding fluorescent lights illuminating every bit of fine texture of your skin BUT IT HAS BEGUN. And now I can't stop self consciously rubbing at my forehead now.

In celebration, I'm stuck in a loop where I'm reliving my past immature situation involving a boy and a girl and icky emotions, but this time I'm able to calm the fuck down and be like "maybe I should examine why I get so upset at this person BEFORE I try to have a discussion about feelings" as opposed to my previous method, which was to get drunk and confront them with the meanest, soul-cutting words I could use to get it into their head that they hurt me thiiiis much. I'm a grown up now, goddammit.

Otherwise, I am on the verge of some amazing projects, if I could just find the time to do it all.

so i took up the whiskey challenge, and let me tell you; you know what the big secret of recovering-alcoholics -that-never-truly-stop-but-just-get-shit-under-control-for-48-weeks-a-year is? its that drinking like a brrrrr responsible person does neat shit like let you get tipsy on a one or two cocktails. SCORE.

oh hey, heres somethingi havent really bitched about because i talk to the dude and we are friends...i took a break from writing, as i didnt find myself enjoying it at all anymore. whilst bullshitting with said artist friend (who is seriously, very talented but applies himself even less than my lazy ass) a couple months back i told him a ridiculous, yet workable idea i had that morning. he encouraged me whole heartedly to do it, that it would get me goin again, blahblahblah and that he would draw it.

SWEET.

i was motivated again. kicked out the short story over night, sent it to him and you other frustrated writers to-be and also never-to-be can probably guess how much work he has done on it since late november. zero. yeah. i forgot that the quest for collaborators was one of the things that made me stop giving a shit about making comics. i personally just dont have the perseverance to go through like 5 people flaking in order to even get a split single issue out. to everyone that does it, you are much more determined than i, and i (for now at least) am content to just read great comics and appreciate them for what they are.

Rotten real life fucktangle, that actually just about covers it.What is the word for when you're actually healthier in mind and body than you have been in ages, have lots of good relationships of every permutation with large numbers of amazing and inspiring people, are focused and energised and doing what you want to do for the first time in forever with exciting prospects on the horizon and there is still this fucking stupid part of you like a big black senseless engine of destruction that keeps pushing you right to the edge of fucking everything up, just because?Is there a word for that? I hope not. If there was a word for it, I would slap the living shit out of that word right now.Flying high and smiling with guts full of broken lightbulbs and leaking batteries, dumbly refusing to accept defeat.It hurts hurts megahurts but this too too will pass - it is all just a superstate of mind. To your health, chapelfolk. Find the good fight.

I've been cat sitting at my parents, and I've learned that spending the weekend there means I won't get anything done and then I'll feel bad about it. Also, my unemployment checks were supposed to show up sometime this past week and I haven't gotten one yet. I am so not happy about this.

I had my apartment warming/fancy tea party and it went well. I just went through a container of clothes and removed the ones that clearly won't fit and someone else might enjoy. I used to be so tiny! I suppose getting back in shape and losing weight should be my big goal for the year. Apparently I've gotten faster on the stairs, so that has to count for something, right? For all my vanity, I really am very unhappy with all the weight gain over the past 8 or so years. Steady but sure, and it's very scary.

I think that's it for now. Time to head home to my apartment where there is no internet.

life is being ripped apart at the seams here. We are so very very broke. Our cars tires were slashed (both mine and the husbands) we are more than sure we pissed all of no one off, we are quiet people around here.... The hubbies mouth is being more expensive than we thought and the procedures were/are moved all over the place. My savings (for the site) no longer exists due to this fact. I've had to cancel several of my things to cover the mounting medical costs. Insurance is being a turd of a bitch about things right now. I'm doing one convention to hopefully sell out of all of my hats (we need the money) I"m likely going to be going back to the working world doing Dental Tech stuff (which i like doing except for all the bull shit that comes with it and it is instant glass shrapnel to the lungs)

Things were quite nice for a while and i'm really crossing my fingers that this is a down swing only to have a much bigger up swing...

@Trini me too- two weeks in a row actually I've tried calling but the line has been busy.....

Headachy. Weather can't decide if it wants to be winter or spring, which makes my sinuses and skull think this is a lovely time to make me suffer. Suspect I have tendonitis in my elbows, which is a bitch. Working on project ideas for web design class, and dreading programing logic- so many new concepts to learn. One way or the other, it feels like my brain will explode. I seem to oscelate between periods of fear, anxiety and depression, and short bursts of being okay. I try to enjoy feeling okay, but then feel guilty because it's not a productive okay, and locals keep on telling me I should have a career, my health won't last forever (lol. health? I never HAD good health.) and how I'm wasting my life, no matter WHAT I'm trying to do.

Frustrated, bitchy, and working on saving up for a dog; I'll probably blog about that on g+, its complicated.Wishing there were more locals I could just talk to. Sometimes hearing voices of other people helps.

Also, Little kitty finally learned what the cat bed was for. Months after I got it, and Fate'd been using it. I guess she had to make sure it was safe. Cats are strange.

I realize that I only post about myself when there's bad news. There's always bad news, but...yeah. Bad news.

I never posted about having a girlfriend. I complained so much about being lonely and shit and then I never posted about dragging myself out of it. I feel like an asshole for it, even if exactly none of you care. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.

So I started this semester with this inexplicably awesome gust in my sail. I'm taking my last few philosophy classes before doing my thesis and graduating in the fall, and in the meantime I got to go and hang out with this amazing and beautiful young woman. Everything was going so damned well: she was kind and my heart was filling for the first time in so long...and that's how a sad story begins. We dated for six weeks. It was the perfect amount of time to develop feelings for her without having that "At least I tried" mantra to pull me through the next six where my bed is so fucking cold and my heart is so fucking twisted.

I know what happened. Everything was so easy. Too easy. I could agree to anything, I could accommodate her at any turn. I thought i was being the best and everything was going great. The hearts of a fairer sex need more than ease and comfort. The lack of tension bothered me, but I wanted so badly to be perfect, to be good, to show love without being overbearing, without interfering, that I let the light go out. I watched it and did nothing.

Tension, for my other relationships, led down dark, dark roads for me. Blamed for everything wrong in the world, beaten and abused for showing care and consideration, I couldn't afford it again. All I wanted was to be easy to be with, to be a paragon of boyfriendliness that I sorely regretted not being before, and instead of finally getting what I have so desperately needed for so long, I got someone who cares about me very much in the completely wrong way.

I've mentioned I don't drink on here before, but as time goes on I know less and less why I don't. My principles mean less and less to me when all I am is the best friend no one wants to hang out with, and the best boyfriend no one wants to love.

As it turns out, the love you take is at great differential to the love you make.

So I'd been doing okay for the past couple of weeks. I've been keeping the one resolution that I mean to keep (eating smaller, healthier lunches at work, jumping rope and doing push-ups every week night), and then at 4am this morning I wake up shivering, so I throw another blanket on and I'm still unable to get warm. I drift in and out of sleep for the next four hours, and then I get up, still freezing, shower, get dressed, check my thermostat and see the temperature is 71, so I shouldn't be freezing. Go to the office because I have to approve my team's time cards so they can get paid, and then beg off staying at work. Get back to my apartment and take my temperature and, surprise, 101.4 degrees.

I've spent most of today in bed trying to let this fever burn itself out, and I'm extremely frustrated because it feels like every time I make some progress in getting myself into shape something like this happens. Last October I got some sort of viral infection that lasted a couple of weeks so I didn't feel up to working out, before that I broke my shoulder mountain biking, so couldn't do anything until that healed, etc.

School starts in like TWO WEEKS. I'm taking 14 units over four classes. Text books are gonna kill me. Three of the text books are available on Kindle. One reasonably priced. Two of them are a hundred a piece. Fuck, man. BUT I'm more comfortable paying a hundred on Kindle versus the 149 they were at my schools online book store (Which is newly third party'd out to some BS company) in CAFESCRIBE format only viewable via a website (NO offline viewing) and can only be accessed by a limited number of devices (Desktop at home + my tablet = probably won't be able to read my digital textbook in the library or computer lab on campus). At least with Kindle textbooks I can read them on my laptop, tablet, any web browser, etc and make highlights/notes/bookmarks easily (oh, and after the semester is over my access won't be revoked like most other digital textbook retailers -_- ). Tomorrow I've gotta call and see if I can grab an on campus employment position SOMEWHERE still.

I still have to buy a (inexpensive as possible) laptop, so on certain days I can spend the 4-5 hours between my morning and night classes on campus getting homework done. 14 units + my regular job + on campus job will be pretty difficult but I have to save as much monies as I can since in the fall I'm gonna have a lot more bills to pay regularly D: which sucks when the minimum wage needs to be 3 times what it is to afford a shitty 1 bed room apartment anywhere.

I'm still making silly comics. In my brains I wanted to have a fourth full length issue of my silly robot comic, Scrambled Circuits, done around June but I haven't done much aside from jot down some notes and stuff. I've been working on non-scrambled circuits stuff, though, which has been very fun. I should have another zine done and photocopied in a few days, at least. I don't really have aspirations to BE a comic creator. I just want to MAKE comics. I wanna improve, learn, grow, experiment, and make the best comics I possibly can... Currently, I'm at about 5-6 dozen copies sold of each of my issues through Etsy and other places (by far mostly direct orders through paypal). Ideally, with a lot more patience than I generally have with anything, whenever this year I finish this next one I can get it nearer to a hundred copies. And considering I draw like a five year old, I'm pretty happy with all of this. Just gotta start DOING IT MORE (Part of me is hoping I cant get an on campus job this semester :P). Tons more work to do for an actual website, but I find time to progress slowly on that here and there.

Of course, aside from my brains demanding I doodle comics or else go insane, the most adorablest girl ever works in the copy center at my newish job, so I do it mostly because of that at the moment.

Last week I bought a plastic cover for my boxspring and mattress after dousing both of them in diatomaceous earth.I started sleeping in the livingroom, and spending my days meticulously going through everything I own. I've moved half my furniture to tear out my carpets, the one stuck under heavy furniture I cut mostly free with a boxcutter. I was nearly done, and feeling rather good about the situation. I'd not found a grimy nest anywhere as I was supposed to. Three bedbugs appeared trapped beneath the plastic bed-condom, but it all seemed under control. And then I turned to my dresses and skirts and jackets; the ones that hang on a bar that goes across the foot of my bed. My dresses are INFESTED. No wonder Iv'e scratched my ankles raw. It's disgusting. I've now bagged up every bit of fabric I own in garbage bags, sprinkled diatomaceous earth inside, and shook the bags about, intending that tomorrow I wash everything in HOT water and in the drier on HIGH and hope all my clothes don't get destroyed, and pay a fortune on all the dry cleaning, too. And then I read that washing isn't needed, and one can easily just put the clothes in a drier for 45 minutes.

Wish I read that before I sprinkled all my clothes in lung-damaging powdered fossils that need to be washed out.

Man, I've literally got the cooties.

Perhaps that's why the cute boy seems to be avoiding me. At least, I hope that's the reason.

It's my birthday. Or it was, a few hours ago. 22 is still quite young, I am aware.

I had to give my school nearly $700 today. That's with my full tuition scholarship and all. If the check I'd written for my screen for screen printing had gone through yet, I wouldn't have been able to pay that, and would have been in trouble. My mom didn't call and wish me a happy birthday because I called her to beg for money. I now have less than a hundred dollars to my name, basically. And my rent is $200, and due very soon. So I'll have to call and beg again, and keep doing that until summer.

I guess I do have another $50 from that nude modeling gig I took on saturday. But I can't put it in my checking account because that account is in my hometown's credit union.

Tonight for my birthday, my sister took me out to eat. It was a fancy place, probably filled mostly with people who were in town for Sundance. It cost her over $70 for our meals. It seems so incredibly strange that anyone could ever spend that much money on a meal, especially my family member with whom I am currently living.

I need to apply for more art scholarships for next school year. That's going to be my last one. Then I'll have a BFA. It may be useless, but really, I basically got it for free.

It's not all money problems in my world. I watched La Strada for the first time tonight, and made out with a boy for a few hours. I've kissed 3 guys in the space of a little over a month. this is extremely odd. It does not seem like it could be my life. I mean, I had my first kiss at 20, and only my second at the end of this last December. I really shouldn't be leading anyone on. I'm still in love with that one boy I've been writing letters to for the last year and a half, and he's really the only one I want to be with. But I haven't heard anything from him since a few weeks before Christmas.

I had a party last night, because classes from 8:30 to 7 sort of ruined what fun plans I could have had. One of my friends who came to said party had a chat with me about a recent conversation she had with my ex. He's been pushing away a lot of people, and I'm worried about him. I just wish I could be helpful and be a friend again, but I know that I couldn't be. At some point he's going to see what he's been doing and he'll have no one to turn to. Sometimes that's a comfort. But the last day or two it's just made me sad.

I had one of those days where you just kind of want to go somewhere quiet and cry. It got better, and it's over now. But still. I've definitely had better birthdays.